January 2006

January 30, 2006

Where is the journalistic skepticism in this terrible Alternet article on homeopathy? The tag-line for their article is “Are homeopathic remedies more effective than flu shots? According to 1918 figures, they may be.” Really?

The article starts with several paragraphs about how flu shots aren’t really all that effective, and how people get the flu anyway. Now, much of this is probably true – the flu virus frequently mutates to a version not covered by the vaccine, and so the shot often isn’t as effective as we would like. But the authors seem to conclude from this that homeopathy works, and they go on to repeat numerous baseless claims about its efficacy.

The authors of this article are confusing two things:

Whether the flu vaccine is as effective as we’d like, and

Whether homeopathy works.

The authors imply a false dilemma – if the flu vaccine is not always effective then homeopathy must be better. But this is just flawed logic. Sure, the flu vaccine doesn’t always work, but that doesn’t mean homeopathy does.

But as well as the fallacious logic, there is a total lack of skepticism or journalistic professionalism in the way they report the homeopaths’ survey:

During the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which killed up to 50 million people worldwide, homeopathic physicians in the United States reported very low mortality rates among their patients, while flu patients treated by conventional physicians faced mortality rates of around 30 percent. Dr. W.A. Dewey gathered data from homeopathic physicians treating flu patients around the country in 1918 and published his findings in the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy in 1920. Homeopathic physicians in Philadelphia, for example, reported a mortality rate of just over 1 percent for the more than 26,000 flu patients they treated during the pandemic.

(My bold.)

OK, I’ll accept the homeopaths reported low mortality. But was this independently checked? Did the homeopaths ignore patients who died, or did they perhaps assume they died of something else? Did the homeopaths even check to see if any of their patients died? I’m sure they didn’t do a complete survey. Would they even know how many of their patients had died? How representative were the homeopathic patients anyway? Of course, we don’t know the answers to any of these questions. The flaws in this self-selecting “study” should be obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of how scientific tests should be run. The article in this homeopathic journal is nothing but a load of anecdotes from a biased source. And anecdotes are not data.

Homeopathy is unmitigated pseudoscientific nonsense that was simply made up by its founder, Samuel Hahnemann, 200 years ago. It’s based upon two false premises:

Hahnemann noticed that quinine, a treatment for malaria, gave symptoms similar to malaria itself in a healthy person. He concluded, for absolutely no reason at all, that anything that gives the symptoms of a disease to a healthy person would cure that disease in a sick person. He didn’t derive this by experiment. He didn’t test it. No one has ever shown this to be true, and in fact it is patently false.

Unfortunately, giving sick people something that “gives the symptoms of a disease to a healthy person”, also made sick people sicker. So Hahnemann decided to dilute the “remedies” so they didn’t make the patients sicker. But surely, (I hear you say), if you dilute them, won’t they be less effective? This led Hahnemann to make up his second law:

Homeopathic remedies typically have less than a 50% probability that there is even one molecule of the ingredient left. (Seriously – I’m not making this up.) Essentially there is nothing left but water. So how did Hahnemann explain this? He decided water must somehow retain a memory of the remedy – it must remember the properties of the remedy although nothing is left except but pure water. Again, there is no reason to suppose this is true. Hahnemann didn’t derive it, he just made it up. It was never tested, and it goes against everything we know about chemistry. And we know it’s false.

Homeopathy stems from these two false ideas. Treat the symptoms with symptom-like remedies, and dilute until nothing is left. The fact that this was never tested, and goes against all science tells us, does not necessarily mean it is wrong. But it does mean the evidence it works needs to be stronger than the evidence we demand for other things. But believers in homeopathy expect us to believe what they say based on weaker evidence, such as this lame 88 year old survey of homeopaths.

A recent review of 110 homeopathy trials, published in The Lancet, found no convincing evidence the treatment worked any better than a placebo. In 200 years homeopathy has not progressed beyond badly run (and often dishonest) bogus “trials” and the opinions of homeopaths and their patients. There is a reason we use double-blind trials to determine the efficacy of any new therapy – it is because this has proven to be the only way to determine what really works. Why should homeopathy not be required to demonstrate that it works to the same standards of real medicine? Why is it that this magic water defies the simple procedures of testing that works with everything else?

The Alternet report was absolutely the worst article on homeopathy I have ever read in any independent media outlet (ie outside of homeopathic or “Alt.Med” journals and the like). Homeopathy does not work. The authors should be ashamed that they applied no journalistic skepticism to this story.

January 27, 2006

Where does he get it from? It seems Deepak Chopra has an endless supply of meaningless drivel to churn out when anyone gives him a forum. His latest piece of verbal diarrhea can be found here on the Huffington Post blog, that haven for anti-science screed. Let’s dip in and see what gems he has to share with the unwashed:

Some concept of a "subtle body" is accepted widely throughout the East, but it hasn't made major headway in the West for one obvious reason: Whatever is invisible has little standing in a materialistic culture where reality is defined by science.

Yes, science has no time for invisible things like radio waves, atoms, MRIs etc. – all things discovered by science incidentally, not by drips like Chopra. Of course, what he means is that science is only interested in things that have a measurable effect – things that can be tested. If something has no measurable effect (for example, this "subtle body" he’s talking about), then it might just as well not exist. So does his "subtle body" have a measurable effect or is it just too damn subtle to measure?

This is really a fallacious appeal to other ways of knowing. Other ways than science, that is. But science has proven to be the most (only?) reliable method we know for evaluating claims and figuring out how the universe works. If Chopra is claiming that there is a better method, it is up to him to explain what that method would be: something he hasn’t done.

On the periphery of official wisdom, if we can use that term to describe orthodox ways of thinking, millions of people have experienced and believe in the following propositions:

(Snipped list of woo beliefs)

What these diverse things have in common -- besides being excluded from official wisdom -- is that they imply an invisible connection.

No, what most of them have in common is that there is no evidence that they are real.

By which I don't mean a mystical one. Just as the material world is connected invisibly at the quantum level, the subtle world is connected by a field of consciousness. A prayer, a desire to be healed, a wish for peace, hope for reassurance about the dead -- each impulse enters the field of consciousness and is responded to, just as every material event enters the quantum field and is responded to, down to the least quark and photon.

Meaningless gibberish with the word “quantum” thrown in (twice), as well as a quark and a photon for good measure. This is standard Chopra: he quotes quantum mechanics safe in the knowledge that that few people will know he’s talking garbage. In reality, he just wants to hijack the mantle of science to give this gibberish some respectability. It’s sold a lot of books.

So much evidence exists already about everything on the list

Yes, evidence that they are nonsense, don’t exist or don’t work.

that there is no longer a need to try and adapt to the scientific world view as if it were the only valid one.

Another appeal to other ways of knowing. He still hasn’t explained his better way though. Wonder why not?

Consciousness is still a cottage industry. As such, there is a wild mixture of truth and speculation, projection and verification. Anyone's experience could be real or imaginary. Anyone's explanation could be valid or eccentric.

I suppose that paragraph is technically correct. Meaningless though.

This is the best one of the lot:

For a new world view to emerge it must be coherent. It cannot be built up from entirely personal experiences, because sometimes these experiences are so intense that we can't see beyond them.

You know, he’s right. We need a method to evaluate the claims of this “new world view”, a way to objectively test these “experiences” so that we don’t fool ourselves into thinking something is true when it is not. A method where others replicate and confirm our results before they are accepted. A reliable method with a proven track record of success. If only we had such a method.

Imagine being in a room where a clairvoyant medium, a channeler, a faith healer, and an acupuncturist are trying to reach agreement while all around them radios blare messages about UFOs, alien abductions, reincarnation, near-death experiences, etc. The Babel of voices is so intense as to be unintelligible.

Yes, I imagine that a room with a clairvoyant medium, a channeler, a faith healer, and an acupuncturist all babbling together would be pretty unintelligible. Rather an obvious statement to make though.

The first steps have to be taken, however, despite this welter of confusion. A culture of consciousness is possible. In fact, present-day science is such a culture, although it is based, ironically enough, on the premise that consciousness has no validity except as an emergent property of matter. One can foresee the next culture of consciousness based on connections, which would overturn the whole scientific prejudice against the subtle body, invisible realities, and the primacy of consciousness in general.

Maybe. But I don’t foresee Chopra leading us there with this load of waffle.

January 26, 2006

That’s hardly a surprise to any skeptic who has ever debated a believer. But I am talking here just about ignoring facts when making political decisions. New research shows that people are adept at making political decisions without letting the facts get in the way, and they have the brain scans to prove it. A summary is reported in Live Science (all bold mine):

Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.

…

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," … "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."

The subjects eventually rationalized what they had been told, reaching a biased conclusion based on their prior political preference. Their brains continued to be monitored:

Then, with their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained.

The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making.

This shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone who has debated politics either, but it is interesting to see which parts of the brain are being used (or not) and when. I find it especially interesting that the reward circuits in the brain light up when the data the person doesn’t like, has been rationalized away.

Of course, there is a general lesson here for critical thinkers: we should try to be aware of our own biases when being presented with political (and other) information, and should try to evaluate information honestly, even if it challenges our political views (whatever they may be). This is hard, of course. I try to do this but like everyone else I know that I engage in some of the rationalization activities described above at least some of the time. Half the battle, if you want to be a critical thinker, is to be aware of your own biases and of your own rationalization processes – or “the art of thinking about thinking with a view to improving it” as criticalthinking.org puts it. Something we should all try to do.

Of course, if you didn’t come by your opinions through reason you’re unlikely to change them through reason either, which is why woo beliefs are virtually immune to contradictory evidence. Perhaps with some woos, the “part of the brain normally engaged during reasoning” never gets much of a work-out.

January 23, 2006

That’s the headline from this BBC report. Unfortunately the brains being deactivated are clearly those of BBC reporters writing about acupuncture. To see what I mean, read this (all bold is mine):

Acupuncture works by deactivating the area of the brain governing pain, a TV show will claim.

Tuesday's programme - the first of three on complementary medicine - will show researchers carrying out brain scans on people having acupuncture.

The BBC Two show will also feature heart surgery done using acupuncture instead of a general anaesthetic.

Wow, really? Acupuncture instead of a general anesthetic. I thought all these surgeries in China supposedly done using acupuncture and not general anesthetics were actually shown to have been performed using anesthetics (ie there was more involved than acupuncture). Could the BBC have found some surgery that really was performed using acupuncture only? Er, actually no, because the very next sentence reads:

The patient is conscious during the operation in China, but she was given sedatives and a local anaesthetic.

Well if the patient was given sedatives and a local anesthetic, the surgery was not done using acupuncture was it? Sheesh.

Still, the research seems to have come up with some interesting data. Volunteers had “deep needling”: needles inserted 1cm into the back of the hand. A control group had needles placed only 1mm deep. During these two procedures, the volunteers underwent brain scans to see what effect there was in the brain. They found that the superficial needling resulted in activation of the motor areas of the cortex, a normal reaction to pain. However, the deep needling deactivated a part of the brain, specifically the limbic system. This was surprising because it is usually suggested that acupuncture activates the brain – usually the part that produces endorphins.

Of course, there is no suggestion that this result is due to the balancing of yin and yang by releasing blocked qi in one of the specific 2,000 acupuncture points of the body. In fact, there is no evidence from this study that it matters where the needles are placed, and other studies have shown it makes no difference where they are placed as long as the person receiving the acupuncture believes the needles are being placed in the special magic positions. There is still no reason to suppose that there is any value in the detailed training acupuncturists have to complete to learn where to stick the needles, or that there is any value in most acupuncture treatments at all.

Or to quote Professor Tony Wildsmith, a pain relief expert at the University of Dundee:

The thing about acupuncture is that it does not work on everyone. It is more likely to be effective if you believe it.

I think it is a psychological manipulation technique, a distraction. We are not going to get to the stage where this could be used instead of a general anaesthetic.

Still, if independently confirmed, this is useful data. One day, when we understand what if anything acupuncture really does, we might be able to obtain some of its benefits without all the mystical nonsense about qi. Maybe.

January 19, 2006

There
are a couple of posts on that Newage phenomenon, Indigo Children. For example, look at this
post and then read the comments – one guy doesn’t like the skeptical analysis
at all. (I may have to reply to him when
I get some time.)

January 18, 2006

According to Ananova Tom Cruise finally came out of the closet to threaten South Park:

TV bosses have axed an episode of South Park which 'outs' a fictional Tom Cruise character as gay.

They are scared the real Tom Cruise might sue them, according to the Sun.

…

An insider was quoted as saying: “Tom is famously very litigious and will go to great lengths to protect his reputation.

“Tom was said not to like the episode and Paramount just didn’t dare risk showing it again. It’s a shame that UK audiences will never see it because it’s very funny.”

Yes it would be a shame, assuming this story is true. As I wrote here, the episode makes fun of Scientology, as well as of Cruise who gets locked in a closet. The line, “Tom Cruise won’t come out of the closet” is repeated continuously. It is a good episode, ending with the Stan character looking at the camera and repeatedly saying “go on, sue me”. Clearly the TV company wasn’t as brave as South Park creators Matt and Trey. (Or, as the final credits have it, John and Jane Smith.)

If the story is true I declare Tom Cruise to be officially a humorless pussy. Although that’s not really news.

January 17, 2006

Reader Thomas emailed me this story about a man who apparently has been told he has to prove he’s not a ghost:

An Indian man believed dead by his family and fellow villagers caused panic when he returned over fears he had come back as a ghost, the Times of India reported on Monday.

Children screamed “Ghost! Ghost!” and villagers locked their doors when Raju Raghuvanshi returned from jail earlier this month to his village in Mandla district in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

Raghuvanshi’s brothers, who had shaved their heads to mourn his death in line with Hindu tradition, fled when he appeared, the paper reported.

Villagers and family members have ostracised him, forcing Raghuvanshi to file a complaint with local police. The village council has demanded he prove he is not a ghost, but the paper did not say what kind of proof the elders wanted.

Raghuvanshi’s troubles arose after he was jailed last year. In prison, he was admitted to hospital with a stomach ailment from which he recovered but a distant relative told his family he had died.

(My bold.)

Funny how these people believed he was dead just on the word of one person (what – didn’t they want to see the body, or a death certificate?), but need “proof” that he’s not a ghost. “Prove I died” is what I think I would have responded.

It’s also crystal clear from Dembski’s post that all these name changes are just politics and PR:

I therefore offer the following proposal if ID gets outlawed from our public schools: retitle it Intelligent Evolution (IE). The evolution here would be reconceived not as blind evolution but as technological evolution. Nor would it be committed to Darwin’s idea of descent with modification. But, hey, it would still be evolution, and evolution can be taught in schools.

(My bold.)

You’ll note he admits it’s nothing more than a name change to squeak his religiously inspired pseudoscience into school science classes. Remember that when we have the inevitable court cases in a couple of years to teach “IE” in school science classes. Note to Dembski – it takes more than changing one word in a name to make something science. Or as Thoughts From Kansas concludes:

Well duh! But hilariously, Dembski even has this point covered by this wonderful piece of rationalization:

Don’t be distracted by the “thousands” of articles being published in the research journals that purport to support evolutionary theory — this is an artifact of overfunding an underachieving theory.

Yes, all those “thousands of articles” (note the sneer quotes around “thousands”), are merely evidence of over funding of an “underachieving theory”. Obviously. Presumably the total lack of scientific articles supporting ID is evidence of its strength. Or something

January 13, 2006

My zeal, my love of Israel and my concern for the future safety of your nation led me to make remarks which I can now view in retrospect as inappropriate and insensitive in light of a national grief experienced because of your father's illness

So he’s sorry he said it. Presumably still thinks what he actually said was correct.

I’m still a little puzzled by one thing. If God didn’t want Israel to cede Gaza to the Palestinians, with all his omniscience and omnipotence and everything why didn’t he just strike Sharon down before Israel withdrew? Seems like bad planning to me.

January 12, 2006

I have been reading Hugh Ross’ rather bad statistical guesswork on the probability of life occurring in the universe. Ross lists 154 parameters he says are required for intelligent life to exist in the universe. Then he assigns probabilities to them. Actually he assigns probabilities to 322 parameters (not 154), which is a little confusing. Anyway, he concludes there is less that a 1 in 10282 chance intelligent life would occur without a divine miracle. Poor odds! He doesn’t estimate the probability of a deity spontaneously poofing itself into existence so it is there to create the miracle he claims is necessary. Wouldn’t that probability be zero? If not, surely it must be turtles all the way down?

Ignoring that, where to start with Ross’ figures? The first obvious comment is that he doesn’t (as far as I can tell) say how he arrives at the probabilities of any of his 322 parameters – probabilities that range from 0.00001 to 0.7. In my view his conclusion is meaningless because we don’t have anything like enough information to complete such a task. That fact alone sinks his argument before we even begin.

His article is a variation on the finely tuned universe argument – the idea that since the universe's physical constants are within a small tolerance of what is necessary for life, it must have been designed that way. Usually far fewer variables are quoted, and I have to say I’m skeptical of the number of items Ross thinks are necessary, quite apart from the probabilities he claims he has calculated for each one. But the arguments against both positions are the same.

Fine tuning does not imply design

There are various arguments against the idea that fine tuning means design. First, design rests on the assumption that the only type of life possible is the carbon-based form we are used to here on earth. But there is no reason to suppose this is so: we are restricting ourselves here by our own lack of knowledge and imagination.

Second, and totally fatal to the design argument, is that current theories point to the existence of an infinite number of other universes, each possibly with different sets of physical constants and conditions. Certainly a multi-universe scenario can not be ruled out since no known principle requires that only one universe exists. In fact astrophysicist Victor Stenger states:

No new hypothesis is needed to consider multiple universes. In fact, it takes an added hypothesis to rule them out-- a super law of nature that says only one universe can exist. But we know of no such law, so we would violate Occam's razor to insist on only one universe.

The argument is that an infinite number of universes exist, this universe is the one randomly tuned for life, and so this is the one where we have evolved and where we are here to observe that the universe is fine tuned for life. What else would we expect to observe? This is known as the Weak Anthropic Principle.

A third argument is that a fundamental theory of everything might predict that only a very narrow range of physical constants or even no range at all, would even be possible anyway. In other words, right now we just don’t know what the odds would be.

Scott at the As If blog had another angle on this. He looked at Ross’ site and says Ross’ arguments makes it highly unlikely there are other inhabited planets in the universe. Scott takes Ross’ 154 parameters and assigns 50% probability to each (higher than Ross) and concludes the probability of there being a planet with all of these factors is less than 1 in 2 x 1046. He concludes that not only does the existence of Earth demand an explanation beyond random chance; it is also evidence that we are alone in the universe. See his post What are the odds? for the details. Scott asked for my comments.

Of course, if Ross is right and life demands a divine miracle, then applying probabilities to see if we are alone is meaningless - if God created us against the odds he could have created other life too. That argument didn’t especially appeal to me though. There are enough other reasons to reject Ross’ figures as evidence we are alone.

First, several of Ross’ parameters are for things that he says are necessary for life anywhere in the universe. For example:

6. decay rate of cold dark matter particles

7. hypernovae eruptions

9. white dwarf binaries

10. proximity of solar nebula to a supernova eruption

11. timing of solar nebula formation relative to supernova eruption

86. density of giant galaxies in the early universe

109. decay rate of cold dark matter particles

135. level of supersonic turbulence in the infant universe

136. number density of the first metal-free stars to form in the universe

141. heavy element abundance in the intracluster medium for the early universe

142. heavy element abundance in the intracluster medium for the early universe

144. pressure of the intra-galaxy-cluster medium

I’m not sure but I think there are several more. These, according to Ross, are all necessary for life to form in the universe, and those 12 items according to Scott’s formula would have a combined probability of only 0.00024. But since we know life (ie us) did form in the universe, we know the probability for all of these occurring is actually 1. These parameters, and probably several others, should be removed from Scott’s calculation.

Rolling up probabilities

Another major problem with Ross’ calculations is that many of his parameters are dependent on other parameters, resulting in incorrect multiplying up of probabilities. For example, take these four:

All of which if “too many” or “too few” are said to be a problem for life. Scott essentially multiplied these four 0.5 probabilities together to make a probability of all four occurring to be 0.0625. But surely they are essentially different ways of saying the same thing? He is multiplying four probabilities when there should just be one – 0.5.

How about these three:

20. parent star age

21. parent star mass

23. parent star color

But aren’t the color, mass and age of a star interdependent? For example, massive hot blue stars burn more quickly and therefore have shorter lives.

Look at these:

71. Kuiper Belt of asteroids (beyond Neptune)

94. total mass of Kuiper Belt asteroids

I would be grateful if anyone could explain the difference between those two.

Then there are these three:

105. distance from nearest black hole

15. parent star distance from center of galaxy

132. parent star distance from galaxy’s corotation circle

… any of which if “too close” or “too far” are claimed to mean life could not exist. But aren’t these essentially the same thing, or at least very similar? But there’s more – the above three are also linked to:

The reason is that these nine parameters (and maybe others), are all related to what is known as the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ): an area of space with a safe environment and access to the chemical materials necessary for building Earthlike planets. Scott’s 0.5 probability for each of these nine would yield a combined probability of 0.00195 (0.2%). However, a paper published in the journal Science in January 2004 estimated as many as 10% of all stars in the Milky Way galaxy would be within the GHZ – over 50 times what Scott would calculate.

Here’s another problem. The following numbered parameters are all to do with plate tectonics: 14, 54, 92, 153 and 154. Combined, with a 0.5 probability of each, they suggest the probability of plate tectonics arising as 0.03125. But SETI state:

There is nothing miraculous about tectonic activity, and in fact there is some evidence that it has occurred on both Mars and Venus.

Plate tectonics are probably fairly common, possibly even the norm, despite the 3% probability suggested by Scott using Ross’ parameters.

There are so many others like this it would be tedious to list them all, but I think the point is made: Ross did not allow for interdependencies – he incorrectly multiplies interdependent probabilities.

Indeed, even stars somewhat brighter than the Sun, which because of their heightened ultraviolet production might be thought dangerous, could be the loci of life. Jim Kasting has shown that the enhanced ultraviolet radiation from F-type stars would produce so much atmospheric ozone that planetary surfaces could be very well shielded.

Of course, the development of photosynthesis on Earth did not just rely on the sun's wavelengths. It also was dependent on various factors specific to our planet, such as cloud cover, atmospheric composition, amount of land, and the depth of the ocean. Since so many factors played a role in the evolution of photosynthesis on Earth, perhaps photosynthesis could evolve on other worlds orbiting less-than-ideal stars.

In addition, other planetary factors perhaps could speed up the rate of photosynthesis development. There does not seem to be a particular reason why photosynthesis must develop at the same pace as it did on Earth.

As long as planets have enough liquid water oceans and cloud cover to protect against UV radiation, say Wolstencroft and Raven, planets orbiting most stars should be able to develop photosynthesis.One key to finding such planets is to look in the star's habitable zone.

(My bold.)

Ross’ probabilities ignore the habitable zone phenomenon: Earth like temperatures can be found around most stars, but at different distances. In addition, many of Ross’ parameters refer to Jupiter or Neptune, or to other factors relating just to our solar system. Again, Ross assumes that the formation of life requires a solar system like ours. He ignores the possibility of differing evolutionary paths that could adapt to colder/ hotter stars and planets, more/fewer massive planets, and countless other differing environments where life could still evolve. Ross also assumes that the time it took for intelligent life to evolve on Earth is the time it will take in all cases. Making these conclusions based on a statistical sample of one planet is absurd, and yet that is precisely what many of his parameters assume.

There are so many dubious parameters in Ross’ list it would be tedious to list them all, but I think the point is made: Ross’ list is bogus. Talk Reason has a very critical evaluation of Ross, covering some of these points, and others.

The Drake equation

The more usually quoted calculation for this kind of thing is the Drake equation devised by Dr. Frank Drake in the 1960s. The Drake equation estimates N: the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might expect to be able to communicate. Historical estimates of N range from 0.05 to 5,000, depending on the assumptions. From the link it seems like the current thinking is N = 0.0000008316. If there are 200 billion galaxies, I think that would make the potential number of civilizations with intelligence in this universe to be around 166,000.

Is that a reasonable estimate? In my opinion it is also based on many assumptions that we cannot be sure of – in other words I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it’s a better guess than using Ross.

January 07, 2006

Er, dead. According to Randi yesterday, millionaire “psychic” Sylvia Browne appeared on the "Coast to Coast" radio show Tuesday proclaiming the miners trapped in West Virginia would be found alive. That was just after the news broke they had been found alive and just before the news they were actually dead. She could almost be working for PsiTech with this degree of accuracy.

Browne’s performance wouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with her usual lame cold-reading act. First, the (erroneous) news came in that twelve of the thirteen miners had been found alive, and so Browne, not to miss a trick, claimed she’d always known that they would be found alive. Standard practice. Later, after it became clear that these earlier reports were wrong and only one was alive, Browne seamlessly changed her story to "Yes, I just don't see anyone alive there – well maybe one." What a sleaze.

Browne: "No. I knew they were going to be found. I hate people that say something after the fact. It’s just like I knew when the pope was dead. Thank God I was on Montel’s show. I said, according to the time, it was 9-something and whatever Rome time was. And I said he was gone, and he was."

But the situation was fluid, something Browne — ahem! — obviously didn’t sense despite her claims of being able to speak to the dead, among other things. She couldn’t have imagined that within a short time, the entire story of the miners would change completely — and make her look very foolish indeed.

Noory soon announced that there were new reports that all but one of the miners was dead.

Browne — who was still in the studio taking questions from listeners — had to say something. Now she was just riffing: "I don’t think there’s anybody alive, maybe one. How crazy for them to report that they were alive when they weren’t!" Then she added: "I just don’t think they are alive." She cleared her throat, and there was a deafening pause.

Noory went to a commercial.

All the slimy cold-reading tricks are there, but for once clearly exposed for the fakery they are. Usually the mistaken guesses are turned into “hits” by the believers who’ll find some way for the cold reader’s blunders to be correct. But even if they don’t, the experienced cold reader can usually bluff it out. You can see here how Browne hardly missed a beat as the news came in that the people had actually died – but this time even she couldn’t pull it off.

Of course, it won’t stop her or her fans. The credulous will still believe she is psychic. And Noory will have her on again.

One more thing: don’t expect John McCain to run against John Kerry in the next presidential campaign – apparently Sylvia predicted that too so it’s a fair bet it’ll never happen.

January 06, 2006

Remember the Gentle Wind Project (GWP) – the makers of the magic alien-designed plastic cards you hold in your hand to solve all life’s problems? Two former GWP members, Jim Bergin and Judy Garvey, had set up the Winds of Changes website to expose GWP’s racket. Ironically, the GWP brought a racketeering federal lawsuit against Bergin and Garvey, in an attempt to gag them. Bergin and Garvey filed a Motion for Summary Dismissal.

Bergin and Garvey have just won their Motion for Summary Judgment – all charges have been dismissed (.pdf file). Clearly the judge saw through the ridiculous racketeering charges.

A victory for free speech on the web, as well as a victory for the good guys against the woos. Clearly those magic pieces of plastic have their limits.

Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. That’s according to our good old friend, Pat Robertson (who else):

He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America… God says, 'This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it alone.

There you have it. Goddidit. It couldn’t be because Sharon was 77 years old (the risk doubles with each decade after age 35), and not exactly a picture of health, oh no it wasn’t that. It was God’s punishment. Well, thanks for clearing that up Pat.

Of course you knew that, but a British Medical Journal review of several studies has just confirmed it, according to the BBC. Interestingly, the team also warns of the waste of money spent on expensive and unproven therapies like magnets – money better spent on therapies that actually work. Well said! And a lot of money is wasted this way - $1 billion worldwide, according to the article. Remember that the next time altie practitioners say they haven’t the money to do proper studies.

Of course, double-blind studies into magnet therapies are difficult to do because it is usually pretty easy for the patient to be able to tell if they have the magnet of the placebo: the placebo doesn’t attract key rings and other metal items. One study was able to get around this:

The team does refer to one study on the effects of carpal tunnel syndrome - a painful wrist condition - in which the magnets and the sham treatments were boxed so they could not be identified.

In this, they said, there was no statistical difference between patients with real and sham magnets, with both reporting an improvement in their condition.

There is no scientific basis to conclude that small, static magnets can relieve pain or influence the course of any disease. In fact, many of today's products produce no significant magnetic field at or beneath the skin's surface.

Even if it did, the human body is not especially magnetic. Well, unless you’re this guy.

January 05, 2006

The 25thSkeptics' Circle is now up at
The Saga of Runolfr. Apparently Skeptico has been given the avatar
of Hergard
(thanks to Rockstar
for the tip – Skeptico is obviously out of the loop vis-à-vis these kinds of things, and wouldn’t have had a clue
otherwise).

January 04, 2006

For an insight on how “the other side” views the Dover decision, take a look at this post on Scott’s As If blog. Scott is a Christian who supports ID. This is what he has to say about the recent Dover court decision:

Does it bother anyone else that a judge has decreed ID as non-scientific?

Jones clearly adheres to a religion-science dichotomy - a world where faith has no place in "scientific" pursuits. As I've been reminded recently, the philosophy underlying this perspective is naturalism. My friend Leo sums it up well when he describes naturalism as a philosophy that says nature can explain itself. In the view of the naturalist, there is no use or need for a creator. Hence, any endeavor is credibly scientific so long as it results in a natural explanation. By definition, any finding outside of the natural, which by definition is the supernatural, doesn't qualify.

(My bold. You’ll see I have been debating this and other points in the comments.)

I think I can see where he’s coming from: he’s complaining that it’s only because science is defined as looking for naturalistic causes that supernatural causes are excluded. As a believer in the supernatural he doesn’t see why the supernatural should be excluded just by definition.

So I got to thinking, why does science exclude the supernatural? Surely it’s just because the supernatural can’t be tested? What science requires is that you can test your theory, but test in it such a way that, if it were false, it would fail the test. (Because how else do you know if something is true unless you test it in a way that it would fail if it were false?) So surely science doesn’t exclude the supernatural per se, it just excludes things it can’t test?

If that is true, perhaps we should stress the need for falsifiability and testing, rather than the exclusion of supernatural explanations. It may be the same thing, but perhaps it would be more understandable. Or am I wrong?

January 02, 2006

Last Wednesday night Larry King hosted a show entitled “Are Psychics for Real?” (Transcript.) After watching the show I can say for certain they are real – real morons. Sorry, but after a couple of day’s reflection that’s the only conclusion a sane person could come reading their lame half-assed justifications for what they do.

Rockstar wrote about this on Friday – his report should give you an idea of the general inanity involved. I reported on just one of the more stupid fallacious arguments presented, on Thursday. This is a more detailed reflection.

Here’s the set-up. It was billed as a debate of psychics v skeptics, except that there were three psychics and only two skeptics, so not quite even. Actually there was really only one skeptic, but more on that later.

The three “psychics” were Sylvia Browne, James Van Praagh and Char Margolis – three cold readers who have bluffed their way through Larry’s show before. The two skeptics were Dr. Bryan Farha and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Farha is the guy who got through to the Larry King show on the phone 18 months ago and managed to ask Brown why she hadn’t made good on her promise to be tested for Randi’s million dollars.

The Psychics

There were many problems with the way this show was set up and run. First, it was a really badly adjudicated by King, who allowed the psychics constantly to interrupt each other and the skeptics, and thus avoid answering questions. For example, there was one point where Farha got to question Browne about her no show for Randi’s test. Brown made the usual excuses about Randi cheating, refusing to pay out etc. She mentioned the Yellow Bamboo incident, and “Zerbrowski”. I don’t know what Zerbrowski is but I do know the Yellow Bamboo people cheated (they used a stun gun) – Randi certainly did not “run away”. Farha may have been going to explain all this, but we will never know because King never gave him a chance – the psychics all piled in interrupting each other with their dopey rationalizations until the Rabbi got in again. (January 13, 2006 – Edited to add: Randi commented on this today. He essentially confirmed my comments.) Van Praagh was the worst of the lot. Worst in that he was undoubtedly the most stupid, which is quite an achievement in this company. Don’t believe me? Try this for size (my bold):

VAN PRAAGH: The skeptics … use this thing about taking a test and proving it, the emphasis should be on them to prove it to us this is not real …

KING: You're making the claim. They're not making the claim. You're making the claim.

VAN PRAAGH: Prove that we're wrong though. Prove that we are wrong. The things we get people understand.

KING: You can't prove a negative.

Wow! Out-argued and out-skepticed by Larry King! You might as well give up and go home after that. (Except he didn’t.)

But Van Praagh was also the worse in the way he constantly butted in with a diversion whenever a skeptic would ask Browne a good question. Ah what the hell – they all did it. King, of course, was useless. And he wouldn’t shut up. Why didn’t he get Farha to ask some more questions instead of trying to ask some dumb supposed “skeptical” questions himself?

The Rabbi

A major problem I had with the program was the Rabbi. No Rabbi, priest, mullah or any other religious person has a right to call themselves a skeptic. Oh sure, the Rabbi was skeptical of the three psychics’ brand of woo. But in reality he was just annoyed they were interfering with his brand of woo. This allowed Margolis what I thought was actually a valid point:

MARGOLIS: even in the Jewish faith just because you can't prove it...it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You know how do you know that God exists? Now, I believe that during Passover the Angel of Death came and protected the Jewish boys from being slaughtered. Do you believe that? Do you believe there was a real angel?

The Rabbi followed with some rationalizations about why his brand of woo was better. But Margolis was right – the Rabbi also believes in stupid crap although he has no evidence for it, so how can he criticize these three psychics? Why are his fairy tales any better? It is moronic beyond belief to have set up the show allowing the psychics such an easy and valid out. Was there really no one else available? What about Michael Shermer, Penn Jillette or Randi? Weren’t any of these available?

And to make matters worse the Rabbi then tried a bit of cold reading on a caller. Bad idea, doomed to fail. For one, the three professional cold readers have had years to hone their skills – they make millions out of this scam, how is an amateur going to compete? More importantly, the callers are going to give the “psychics” more leeway – they’re going to look for hits and “help” the psychic when they guess wrong. That is the psychology of the cold reading game – if the “psychic” guesses wrong the mark thinks it’s his fault for not understanding the psychic’s message, rather than the more parsimonious conclusion that the psychic just guessed wrong. But they’re not going to play that game for a debunker who has admitted he is guessing. He just ended up looking stupid.

The lone skeptic

Farha was the only good guy there. I liked that he called Browne on not taking Randi’s test – he had a copy of the notarized document showing Randi’s $1million really exists. That was the highlight of the show. But he seemed generally inexperienced in how to present himself on TV and at times looked thoroughly bored by the whole thing. He missed a lot of tricks – for example Margolis’ failed cold reading demonstration that Larry declared a hit. But he was at a major disadvantage not being in the same studio. There seemed to be a time delay before he heard what was being said, and several times he obviously wanted to say something but with the time delay and the three babbling morons interrupting he didn’t stand a chance.

Conclusion

I suppose King deserves some credit for at least having some skeptics on the show, but with one Rabbi and an inexperienced guy with a bad link, they were set up to fail. A better setup would be for Larry to have Michael Shermer, Ian Rowland or even Banachek on for a full hour by themselves. Or Randi. Certainly the skeptical movement has to get its act together and train people how to present themselves on TV before they go up against professional fraudsters like Browne, Van Praagh and Margolis. These people make millions out of this kind of thing. There is a reason they are able to do that – they’re professionals. The skeptics who go up against them are already smarter. They need to be as polished.

Stupid Psychic Tricks

I’ll finish with a few of the more inane remarks from the "psychics". I offer no extra comment except to say they remind me of some of the oldest and lamest arguments put forward by believers on places like JREF and the comments sections of this blog. Read this lot and consider these are the best arguments these best selling psychics can think of. Breathtaking. Possibly the most inane is “you can’t prove air”, but it is a tough call.

Here you go:

VAN PRAAGH: To a certain degree and it has been tested there are certain percentages of it that have been proven to a certain degree in percentage certainly but there are certain scientific methods which also have not been invented yet or come up with a method that they can actually measure something like this.

VAN PRAAGH: Two- thirds of Americans have had experiences where, telepathic experiences where they thought about someone. Five minutes later the phone rings and it's that person. This is a sense that every single person has experienced. Then they cannot negate that and they (INAUDIBLE).

VAN PRAAGH: Just because things cannot be proven scientifically in the scientific method or the way you choose it to be in your paradigm, your way of thinking, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

VAN PRAAGH: If that was the way it is germs, bacteria they wouldn't have existed if we didn't find them and prove them. Look at the planet Pluto. Pluto, we would not have known it existed until we discovered it. That does not mean it does not exist.

KING: What about his point about the tsunami? Why didn't you feel it? BROWNE: But I -- but I did predict a terrible, terrible hurricane and everything else that was going to hit… And in India and that is documented. If the other gentleman would have looked up my -- I said it was going to be.

VAN PRAAGH: I also said it's a way of thinking. It's a way of living. It's a way of knowing this. It's another language. So you can't again, he's applying three-dimensional laws, third dimensional laws into energy which is different.

BROWNE: Why is it you have such a, pardon the expression, hard on for me? I mean what is it with you and I when we're both Jewish people.

MARGOLIS: You know I agree with James. Just because you can't prove something it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

BROWNE: You can't prove air.

VAN PRAAGH: The skeptics … use this thing about taking a test and proving it, the emphasis should be on them to prove it to us this is not real

VAN PRAAGH: Can I just say that a tactic of skeptics, which is evident right here, is that they will use one example like that, very general. What about the other examples? Like I did a reading for Florence Henderson the other day on "E.T. Insider" and her brother Joe came through and said she has a prayer card in her purse. And that was there since 1958. Does that mean -- yes, is that general? I don't think so.

VAN PRAAGH: I think it's been tested, Larry, that thoughts are real things. That thought is energy.

BROWNE: I know, because I've worked with 300 doctors. Do you want their names and addresses and telephone numbers?

VAN PRAAGH: If there's a blockage in the energy in a certain part of the body, she'll intuit that. She'll see that and she'll give out what she sees.